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Neurotic November - Fighting Words

When I saw the description of this album in the review pool saying; "The press release said something about nu-metal/hip hop crossover." Add to the description that this record is put out by Victory, just out of morbid curiosity I had to check out this album. Going into listening to this album my expectations were low, and this album did not disappoint.

Florida's Neurotic November describe themselves as "Hood Metal", and yes from their bio on Victory's website they take that label seriously. They also claim. " We're coming to dominate the underground." I didn't think these guys could get anymore hilarious after listening to this album, but after reading their bio and seeing the band members names, I can say that I was wrong.

The band consists of, and these are actually their stage names, Dirty on vocals, Nig and Yoshii on guitar, Bear on bass, and Paiste on drums. It's hard enough to be taken seriously in 2016 as rap metal band, but how the hell do they expect anyone to take them seriously with names like that? The first thing that came to mind when I started listening to this album was the Metalocalypse episode, "Dethsiduals", where Toki and Murderface start a label and the first band they sign is a rap rock band called Get Thee Hence. Specifically the scene where Toki and Murderface introduce Get Thee Hence to the rest of DethKlok, and Nathan response to them is, "A rap rock band with a DJ? Someone want to tell this band what year this is?"

This album was a chore to listen to, luckily the album itself is pretty short. That by no means makes the album any better. Every song sounds the same. Overuse of drop-d tuned guitars, breakdowns, and rap interludes, and hilarious lyrics like, "Your love is a waste of love", 'You are a liar', "I'm flyin' round the world like a boomerang", and my personal favorite, "Call the X-Games cuz I'm way too extreme", plague this album.

Beyond some cheap laughs at the horrid vocals, and that there is a Gator on the cover, my wife loves gators, I can't think of a single redeeming quality about this record. The vocals are horrid, the musicianship is lackluster at best, and the contrast between death core growls and rap is just terrible.

The thing that disappoints me the most about this album is that it's put out by Victory. I'm old enough to remember when Victory used to mean something, they used to have an incredible roster with bands like Ringworm, Earth Crisis, Between the Buried and Me, Hatebreed, and Snapcase, just to name a few. Now all the bands with credibility and notoriety, except for Terror, Jungle Rot, and Erimha, still find it hard to believe that there's a black metal band on Victory, have either left the label or have broken up. So your left with Victory being a laughingstock of a label that puts out crap like this. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this album.